


Don't Look Back

by HardNoctLife



Series: IgNoct Week 2019 - HardNoctLife [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Emotions, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Fate, Fate & Destiny, Feelings, Friendship/Love, Ignoct Week, Ignoct Week 2019, Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Pining, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 17:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20139082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardNoctLife/pseuds/HardNoctLife
Summary: IgNoct Week 2019 Day 6: “Ignis and Noctis run away together.”A party is thrown at the Citadel in celebration of Noctis's 17th birthday, but neither he nor his advisor are in the mood to dance.When they came to a crossroads, they must decide whether to follow the road set for them, or choose a different path entirely.





	Don't Look Back

The thrill of strings accompanied by the rise and fall of the jubilant wind instruments wove its way through the ball room and up the grand staircase to where the Prince of Lucis sat on the throne. He watched as people twirled on the dance floor in dizzying circles, a kaleidoscope of fabrics set against more somber suits. Laughter carried with the orchestra’s song, a pleasant melody fit for a birthday ball, yet Noctis Lucis Caelum found it difficult to smile.

The Prince of Lucis slung one leg over the edge of his seat, legs splaying in a haphazard fashion as he slumped against the stone backing. His legs had gone numb over an hour ago and he continued to shift uncomfortably.

“Noct, must you insist on sulking?”

Noctis let his head fall back so that he was draped over the ornate chair, and an inverted image of Ignis Scientia came into view behind him. His friend had recently been promoted as his _official_ advisor (now that he had come of age) but the seventeen-year-old heir still looked at Ignis with the same bored disinterest he would have anyone else.

“I didn’t ask for this, you know.”

Ignis reached to straighten his tie. He had taken to fidgeting with his clothes or glasses whenever Noctis said something infuriating, and the prince had to fight back a smirk as he watched him pause, shoving his glasses higher up his nose when he realized his tie was still perfectly aligned.

He’d already adjusted it a dozen times.

“Not all royal duties are as glamorous as this. You should enjoy it while you can.”

Heaving a sigh, Noctis made a show of sitting up, the world righting itself. He left one knee hooked on the edge of the throne in an act of defiance as he scanned Ignis from head to toe, thoughtful.

“Are _you_ enjoying this, Specs?” He tried not to squirm under his advisor’s appraising glance.

“I would enjoy it if you made an effort. Several princesses and ladies have inquired after you.” Ignis tucked his arms behind his back, perfect posture drawing contrast with his liege’s slack form. “You cannot avoid your guests the whole night.”

There was a silence as the music stopped, and the two locked eyes. It was obvious that had been Noctis’s plan all along.

“I don’t see _you_ dancing,” the prince grumbled as the orchestra resumed playing, a slow and sweet ballad.

“Noct. I am your advisor,” Ignis reminded him with an air of exasperation. “I must insist you dance with someone. It’s _your_ birthday, after all.”

Noctis didn’t speak at first, gazing down to where the party was in full swing, people perfectly content to continue their reveling without the pleasure of his company. He kicked the foot that hovered over the ground, knee bending and straightening in idle contemplation. After some deliberation, the prince hopped up, as lithe as a cat, and made his way down the stairs, taking two at a time.

Surprised by the sudden movement, Ignis lagged a few steps behind, eyebrows furrowing with concern. He trailed Noctis discreetly, stifling a noise of vexation as the prince skirted the dance floor and made for one of the balconies. They ducked past a thick curtain that served as a partition and out into the open air.

It was an unusually cool evening for August, and the stars shone brightly over the Insomnian city skyline. Ignis followed Noctis to where he came to lean against the banister, staring down at the winding city streets below. Cars looked like ants, the world a miniature model of the place they called home.

“One dance,” Noctis mused. Ignis frowned. “One dance, then you’ll leave me alone?” His advisor tutted in dismay.

“That’s not—”

Noctis turned to him, and Ignis’s words fell away, captivated by the light reflected in the prince’s pale eyes.

“Yes,” he conceded reluctantly.

With a mischievous grin, Noctis held out his hand. Ignis stared down at it in confusion. “C’mon, Iggy. You agreed.”

Ignis felt a rare flush rise up from his neck that colored his entire face. “That’s hardly what I meant, and you know it!” Noctis pulled his arm back, body convulsing with laughter. Ignis reached for his tie, scowling.

_Thirteen._

When the prince’s cackling finally subsided, he placed his forearms on the railing once more, torso angling forward. Ignis resisted the sudden urge to pull him back, heart thudding nervously in his chest from how the prince threw his body carelessly, tilting so that his feet left the ground.

“Do you ever just want to run away from it all?” Noctis’s question was quiet, and it was nearly lost on the breeze that whipped past.

Ignis hesitated, mouth opening and closing. There was a thrum of discomfort in-between his lungs.

_Hasn’t everyone, at one point or another?_

Not waiting for his friend to answer, the prince turned, stalking back towards the ballroom. Ignis was left shell-shocked from the whirlwind of emotions that had just ripped through him. It took several inhales and exhales before he fully recovered. When he did, he took rushed steps inside, eyes scanning for a young man in a pinstripe suit with a head of jet-black hair.

He found him on the dance floor, hand extended in invitation to a young woman in a flowing white gown and matching pale-gold hair. A hush had fallen over the crowd as people pulled aside to watch, and Ignis’s breath caught in his throat, sticking painfully. He stared in wonder as the Tenebraean princess began to step in time to the count, Noctis leading her with a practiced grace that had not come easily.

They were as brilliant as night and day.

Ignis remembered their dance lessons fondly. Noctis had bust out laughing when he had accidentally stepped on the taller boy’s feet for the millionth time, causing him to curse in pain and frustration.

_Wow, there really is a first time for everything_, the prince had teased over Ignis’s profuse apology. _Guess you’re human after all. _

He was more human than he liked to let on.

As the entire court was held captive by the prince’s dancing, Ignis allowed his mind to drift as he relaxed against a pillar. The glow from the large chandelier above made it appear as if the couple was floating on a sea of glass, their bodies mirrored in the reflection on the marbled tile. It was something straight out of a dream, and nostalgia ripped through Ignis’s chest, stirring up buried emotions and memories.

_Do you ever just want to run away from it all?_

He remembered Noctis on his sixteenth birthday, holding tight to his shirt as the rain fell outside Ignis’s apartment. Their umbrellas cast aside, they stood in a circle of light—the only two people in the universe.

The prince’s tears had mixed with the precipitation, but there was no doubt in the way his voice wavered that he was desperate.

_Let’s go, Ignis, just you and me. We can leave Insomnia and never look back. _

Ignis remembered shaking his head, the cold damp of the fall chilling him until his bones ached.

When he walked away, he had left a piece of his heart behind. They hadn’t spoken of it since, continuing as they always had, but Ignis had never forgotten it.

The music ended abruptly, and Ignis blinked, regrets scattering to the shadows of his mind from whence they came. There was applause as Noctis released the princess’s hand, and the spell was broken, chatter filling the stillness as a violin took up the slack.

He closed his eyes to center himself. When he opened them again Noctis was nowhere to be found.

At first he thought that he had just missed him, or that he might have lost him in the crowd somewhere, but after three turns about the room Ignis felt certain that his intuition was right. Pulse thundering in his ears, he ran to the throne, searching high and low.

Nothing_._

He returned to the balcony where they had spoken—empty.

Ignis was frantic now, tearing into every room off the grand hall, startling lovers hidden in dark corners who had slipped away for moments of respite. He didn’t bother muttering ‘sorry’s or ‘excuse me’s. Noctis was missing, and he had to find him.

His breaths were coming hard and fast, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he had nearly given up when he turned down a long empty hall that led towards the upper lobby. There was the faint ding of elevator doors sliding open, and he took off at a run, daring to hope.

Ignis caught them before they slid shut, the doors framing Noctis’s shocked expression. Neither of them moved, the only sound Ignis’s labored breathing.

“Highness. Where are you going?” Ignis demanded. He held the doors open, the tension showing in the way his forearms flexed beneath his suit jacket. His eyes stayed trained on Noctis’s face, and the prince shifted, looking away.

“For a walk,” Noctis answered casually.

“Noct.” Ignis’s tone made it clear he didn’t believe him.

“Ignis,” he echoed. The prince’s voice went low, pleading, and Ignis was thrown back a year to _that_ night, when he chose duty over desire.

_Somethings are simply not meant to be, _the advisor thought bitterly.

“They won’t even notice I’m gone. I promise, no one will blame you.”

Ignis’s mouth gaped open.

“That’s not—you can’t just—you’re _wrong_!”

The advisor wasn’t one to stumble through sentences. He always knew what to say, because that’s what he had been trained to do. He’d spoken to diplomats and royalty on the prince’s behalf, people three times his age and with the power to end his life with a single word, and he’d done it without stuttering.

Ignis developed _plans_, daily itineraries mapped out before the sun yawned itself awake. The sun could afford to be lazy, but the prince’s advisor couldn’t. Every moment was timed and scheduled down to the last minute. His life revolved around Noctis’s—ensuring he was in the right place and talking to the right people—ensuring he was set up for success. Everything had been accounted for since the day the two boys had been introduced.

Except for the fact the Noctis didn’t want to be a prince.

And the lesser, more infuriating fact that he _loved _Ignis, but not for his station. Not as an advisor, and not as a friend, but as something more.

It was Ignis’s greatest failure, and his deepest fear, because he had allowed it to happen even when he saw the early warning signs, and now they stood at a crossroads, the future of Lucis hanging in the balance.

“Come with me.” Noctis spoke as casually as if he were inviting the man out for lunch, but to Ignis, it was like a knife twisting in his stomach.

_Let’s go, Ignis, just you and me. We can leave Insomnia and never look back. _

“I can’t.” His words were as taut as a guitar string, pulled tighter by Noctis’s crushed expression.

“Then…let me go,” he pleaded. The knife dragged across Ignis’s abdomen, and he couldn’t breathe. 

With trembling hands, Ignis stepped back, watching Noctis’s eyes double in size. The elevator doors stuttered, sliding closed. Before Noctis disappeared behind them, Ignis saw the flicker of a smile that didn’t reach the prince’s eyes.

He was gone.

Ignis wasn’t sure how long he stood there, frozen in time. The hallway had become a city street, but this time he was the one left in the rain, watching as the one he loved disappeared into the night. 

His chest heaved painfully when he finally remembered to inhale, and his legs turned on autopilot, taking him back into the ballroom.

The music and laughter were discordant and jarring now, colors muted where they had once been vibrant. Ignis resumed his post against the marble pillar and looked out at the revelers, seeing, but not processing.

He barely registered the swishing of expensive fabric as a woman came to stand beside him.

_I don’t want to dance_.

She waited patiently in his periphery, and Ignis was too polite to ignore her. Years of grooming made him turn, and steeling himself with a forced smile, he was surprised to find Noctis’s dance partner, the Princess of Tenebrae.

Her smile was disarming, and Ignis’s mask fell briefly, unprepared for how it made his heart clench. 

“Forgive me, sir, but is everything all right?”

Ignis paused, unsure how to answer.

_No, everything is a mess, and it is all because of me. _

“Pardon, Your Highness, but I don’t understand. I am no one of consequence. You needn’t concern yourself with me.”

“You’re Prince Noctis’s advisor, Ignis Scientia, are you not? I couldn’t help but notice that you haven’t joined in the festivities.” She folded her hands in front of her, and they disappeared in the layers of her gown.

He peered at the princess, stunned by her blatant concern and disregard for social hierarchy. She blinked back at him, eyes as clear as the summer sky.

It went against everything he was taught, but it had been that sort of evening. “I suppose I am not feeling very festive. I made a grave mistake, and I do not think I will ever recover.” The young woman nodded, gazing out across the floor contemplatively.

“I detest events like this,” the princess admitted abruptly. “Everything is orchestrated perfectly—the clothing, the music, the dances. Each step is predictable, and all the conversations are the same. It is quite boring, don’t you think? People hide their true desires by standing on ceremony, each of them eager to please everyone except themselves. I cannot imagine living such a sad and meaningless life. Even so, I am trapped in Fate’s grasp, and spin in circles, unable to break free—the irony.” She leveled Ignis with a knowing look, as if she were staring into his very soul.

She couldn’t have known, and yet…

Ignis swallowed hard, palms clammy. 

“Given the chance, I would leave my title behind. I envy those in your position, Mr. Scientia, able to serve as they see fit.”

The air in the ballroom had grown stifling. Ignis wanted to protest that he _hadn’t _chosen his own destiny. Like the prince and princess, someone had determined it for him long before he was born, but the princess’s statement had awakened a new thought in him.

What was keeping him from choosing otherwise? _Who_ was stopping him?

When the woman took Ignis’s hands in hers, a strange sensation enfolded him. Tears stinging his eyes, he bowed his head beneath her warm smile.

“It’s not too late,” she whispered.

Ignis’s heart was a runaway train, headed for a bridge that was out. His only options were to try and regain control by slamming on the emergency brake, or plunge headfirst into the abyss, unable to see the bottom, and hope for the best.

The princess was pulling away, and she flitted in and out of the crowd, vanishing as quickly as she had come. She never looked back.

Ignis took two steps, then several more. His mind was moving faster than his body, but it was making a valiant effort to catch up. By the time Ignis entered the hallway, he was running at a steady pace, and the advisor flew around a corner to slap the button for the elevator, bouncing on his heels impatiently.

It took less than thirty seconds without the doors opening before he headed for the stairs, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. Ignis leapt entire landings, clinging to the railing for leverage as he spun down, down—multiple flights rushing past at breakneck speed.

_Please—don’t be gone yet—please—!_

When he finally reached the ground floor of the Citadel he was gasping. His muscles burned with exertion, but there was no time to slow down. Sprinting out of the ostentatious gates and through the courtyard, his eyes searched frantically for any sign of Noctis.

“Noctis!” he wheezed, then, taking a deeper breath he yelled, “NOCT!”

The advisor’s voice echoed in the emptiness, and he pressed on, leaving the royal grounds. He ran all the way to the street and stood on the curb to watch as cars sped past, feeling lost.

_It’s too late_, Ignis thought, and he sunk down, placing his head in his hands. The air hummed with the sound of traffic and city life, disguising Ignis’s sobs.

The train had reached the bridge, except now, Ignis could clearly see the ground as he plummeted off the edge of the cliff.

It wasn’t the fall that would kill you—it was the sudden stop.

Once again, Ignis had missed his opportunity, except this time, there wouldn’t be a second chance.

He didn’t hear the voice at first. It was skeptical, drowned by the revving of an engine in the distance. The second time, it was firmer, more insistent.

“Ignis?”

The man’s head jerked up, and he wiped away his blurred vision with the backs of his hands.

Noctis’s form loomed with amazing clarity, haloed by the streetlight behind him.

“If you came to stop me—" 

“No,” Ignis interrupted, rising to his feet shakily. Noctis’s eyes narrowed slightly, unconvinced. “I…came to join you.” The prince’s advisor lowered his gaze, nerves setting loose butterflies in his stomach. “If you’ll have me.”

Ignis’s anxiety spiked in the silence that followed. His pulse was a crashing tumult between his temples. 

“Of course, I will.”

Ignis lifted his chin, unsure he had heard right. Noctis smiled brightly, dispelling the clouds of doubt that lingered in Ignis’s mind. Suddenly, his heart was soaring high above the city and into the ether beyond, anchored only by Noctis’s hand as it found his.

They started to walk, the prince leading the way. Ignis could feel all of his carefully made plans crumbling to dust, notions of his intricately concocted future swept beneath their feet as they took long strides away from the Citadel.

Fate had set them on a straight and narrow road with the expectation that they would follow it without question, but when faced with a crossroads they had decided they would create their own path, and now that they were on their way nothing could stop them.

Ignis kept his gaze fixed squarely between Noctis’s shoulder blades.

They didn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> My wife, when reading the description of Noctis sitting on the throne in the beginning said: "he sounds like he's sitting like Jareth, the Goblin King, from _Labyrinth_." Which is a BIG mood, to be honest. Besides, we all know gays can't sit straight.
> 
> This author responds to all comments! Feel free to talk to me directly on Tumblr (hard-noct-life) and Twitter (@HardNoctLife)
> 
> Art by AceFlorins (@aceflorins, Tumblr/Twitter)


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